I have been taking your Introductory Latin and was doing well until this week when the various passive voice forms are all jumbled in my mind. Do you have more exercises or should I get a workbook?

This question comes from a young assistant who is going off to graduate school (in German) in the Fall. When I asked him how rapidly he had been going through the course, he told me had done 12 lessons in a bit more than three weeks. This is much too fast. One lesson per week would be the goal to aim at, though if one had one time might do two.

As for additional exercises, I should put stronger emphasis, either in the audio lessons or the study guide, on rote drills. In learning a set of paradigms--whether hic haec hoc, or amor, amaris, amatur--first recite several times with the book open, then put a card over the page and recite from memory. Check yourself, move onto something new and then go back. Make use of the drab times of day--eating alone, riding the bus, sitting on an airplane, going to sleep--by going over paradigms. Start with new and/or more difficult ones and then go on to well-known declensions or conjugations so boring that they inevitably put you to sleep.

Some people learn better by writing things out; others can learn with the ears and mouth. Some people--I am one of them--are helped by a rhythmic recitation that accompanies a walking step, as if the muscles are part of the learning process. Hardly anyone I know learns very well by simply reading with the eyes. If that is all you can do, then at least move your lips and hear the sound of the words in your mind. Silent reading is a highly overrated invention of the Middle Ages.

We put the AUTODIDACT on hold, awaiting the development of this website. From now on, I or we shall be answering your questions punctually and, we hope, in a helpful manner.

Dr. Thomas Fleming

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